Alvarado Blog Post #5

In the long run social networking sites like Facebook, twitter, and Google plus might be the end for humanity. Now when I say that I don’t mean that they’re going to take over and destroy humans or anything like that. No, Rosen and many others believe that we are overusing social networking and it’s going to be disastrous in the long run. Rosen and many others believe that by using this as our main source of communication it could affect our social skills in real life. When you “date” or communicate over the internet a lot of people feel less nervous and aren’t afraid to say what’s on their mind most of the time. This means that the individual isn’t afraid of rejection over the internet. Thanks to that reason, when it comes to a real life situation, the person will have forgotten the real feeling of rejection and freeze up. It’s highly possible that he/she could’ve forgotten how to have a simple face-to-face conversation because of overusing a social network, since they don’t know the necessary skills to do it.

                The article by Rosen may have seemed biased at the times, but all she does throughout the article is state facts about that we have come down to. She provides information from other articles that support the things she says. Even though the things mentioned are highly possible, Rosen forgets to mention that most people are actually still doing fine with their social skills. Yes, numerous people have lost their social skills, but that’s only because they literally spend all their time on the internet, meaning they probably never even had social skills to begin with. Rosen’s article is still something that shouldn’t be taken lightly because as time goes on more and more people are going to be spending a lot more time on the internet, which could end in them losing their social skills.

Alvarado Blog Post #4

                1. (Originally from the Top 10 Viral Ad Chart Website) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe2RGUE4joM&feature=mh_lolz&list=FLes_GGQnEy9PyCEXaAvewEw

                2. The video is about an ice hockey players warming up for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. The goalie was doing well at blocking every shot against three guys at once. One of the players got furious and skates to the other side of the ring where a group is practicing curling. He grabs one of the curling rocks, leaving the group frustrated and confused. He skates with it back to the side with the hockey players going towards the goalie. No one was sure what he was about to do, but all of a sudden he shoots it at the goal, making the other hockey players and goalie move out the way. It goes in without a doubt, but it had so much force it picks up the goal and flies toward the glass, breaking it, and almost hits 2-3 people as it lands in a concession stand.  All of this was filmed by a man using the camera on his Samsung phone. Towards the end of the video some small text appears at the end of the video and it says “Samsung is the Official Wireless Communications Equipment Partner of Vancouver 2010,” meaning that this was a promotional ad for Samsung during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. Since it was for the winter games, that’s why the setting for the video was an ice ring with hockey players and curlers practicing.

                3. Because the Samsung ad is during the Vancouver 2010 games, it grabs the attention of the audience by showing a curling and hockey team practicing with a small audience watching them. This gets people pumped up, which is what the ad was able to do. Also the whole thing was captured by a Samsung phone making people believe that a Samsung phone is what you need to take pictures and record at the 2010 Vancouver games.

                4. By hitting the curling rock past the glass and into the concession stand, the ad was able to show the people behind the glass. Specifically, the two guys that were friends because one was the one recording the whole thing, while the other guy was on his Samsung phone and immediately starts talking to his friend on the phone about what just happened. This shows that Samsung phones are the phones to get for the Vancouver 2010 games, so you can catch all the action and talk about it amongst your friends. The ad used the hype of the Vancouver 2010 games and the sports to get people pumped for the winter games, while promoting their phones.

                5. One can say that the target audience for the ad is everyone, but it’s mostly for people who have great interest in the winter games and/or looking for a new phone company. This is kind of obvious because the title of the video is “Samsung Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.” Even if the title isn’t there the text throughout the video also gives you the same information. This ad is also trying to get people to become Samsung Explorers, which is a group of people that are going to record their experiences during the winter games and share them with Samsung and the rest of the world.

                6. To be able to understand this video to its full extent the ad assumes that the audience is well aware of the 2010 Vancouver winter games and the Samsung Explorers.

                7. The point of the ad wasn’t really to show off a specific product or Samsung or anything like that. It was just getting people ready for the winter games and showing that “Samsung is the Official Wireless Communications Equipment Partner of Vancouver 2010,” and get people to become a Samsung Explorer. It’s still a motivator to go get a Samsung phone, since you need to have a Samsung phone to become a Samsung Explorer.

                8. I got this video of the website “The Top 10 Viral Ad Chart.”  It was in the top chart, so that means it’s been viewed by a lot of people which is a plus for Samsung.  This is the best medium for this video because it’s not like people are going to go to YouTube and magically find this video.

In Class Writing #4

There’s a group of people that won a contest with their robot and a picture of some kind of farm with cows. The first picture shows that we fight to reach the top and we are winners, while the second picture shows the more rural side of tech. There’s a map that shows the different locations of the university and it shows how diverse we can be. The colors used for the webpage are blue, orange, and white to make it look appealing. Also in the background there’s a picture of a part of the campus. There’s the VT emblem of 1872 showing how far Tech as made it.

There’s a phrase that says “Spotlight on achievement” next to the slideshow. The left column text describes most of the aspects of college life. The home page is mostly for new visitors trying to find out more about Tech, but it’s still also for the students. It shows how much of an outstanding school VT is and how much fun you can have while still being organized.

Alvarado Blog Post #3

Phrase – Gears of war

1)      Me:

Site 1: Gears of war is a game for the x-box 360, so the first site is the home page for the game.

Site 2: Sends me to the x-box 360  page with the limited edition gears of war 3 x-box 360.

Site 3: It’s the Wikipedia page for Gears of war.

                The first site that popped up was the home page for the game, so that wasn’t a big surprise since it’s the most relevant webpage to the game. For the second one though, it took me to the x-box 360 webpage showing me the limited Gears of War 3 x-box 360. I knew that this would happen since Gears of War 3 is coming out next week and I’ve been constantly looking up the limited edition x-box 360 for the past week.  The 3^rd website was the Wikipedia page for Gears of War, which explains in the history of the game, the creators, and information about the storyline/gameplay, etc. I have been to this site a couple of times, so that probably influenced the searches a little.

2)      Friend:

Site 1: Same as mine

Site 2: Home Page for the game, but a different part of the website

Site 3: The website of Epic games which is the company that created Gears of war

                My friend isn’t a fan of gears of war, so he ended up just getting the generic searches when he googled Gears of War. Me and my friend both got the same first website, but for the second it was different. Since he hasn’t been searching the limited edition 360 like I have, the 2^nd website for him wasn’t a site linking him to the 360, but again directed him toward home page.  Then for the 3^rd website he got directed to the webpage of Epic Games, which is the company and created Gears of War. The site has information about their projects/games, when new add-ons come out for a game, etc.

3)       

                The internet has never been a private thing someone can use and expect to hide the things they do. Everything you do over the internet is made public to everyone, so what’s so bad about Google using it to our advantage? The individualized search is a plus for me because it knows what I’m looking for and puts it at the top of the searches for me. Sure Pariser says that it’s a “filter bubble” and you’ll only get one side of an argument, story, news, etc. which to him is a bad thing. Yes, obviously it is a bad thing, but honestly if you’re using Google to look up important news around the world and information, already it seems like you’re not really that interested in it. You could easily avoid Google and go to sites like CNN where you won’t get a one-sided story, unless of course it’s about politics. Politics is going to be one-sided whether you use Google or not. News stations, radio stations, and many other broadcasting shows/radios have been biased on one side since Google was even invented, so of course you’re going to get a “one-sided” story when using individualized search on Google. If you’re really trying to get more knowledge on politics then you’d know that you’d have to look up multiple sites and articles to get both sides of a story. In actuality Google isn’t doing anything new by “filtering” the information it gives you because all it’s doing is directing you to webpages.

                Now you might be saying “What if they don’t have any knowledge about the subject, but are trying to learn more about it?” If you’re just starting to look up a certain subject/category then the individualized search doesn’t apply because it doesn’t know yet where you go to for the topic. In order for the individualized search to work it had to have tracked where you have gone for the topic and that’s impossible if it’s you’re first time looking it up. In that case, you are not being blocked from the knowledge out there since you get all of it in the beginning. After finding out what you are interested in about the topic, Google is then able to personalize you’re search since it knows what links you’ll click on and which ones you won’t. In the end the internet is still a space for free knowledge and exchange of ideas.

In Class Writing #3

• ·         There is a man sitting next to a woman to show they are equal. This can be confirmed since the man says “Good works sister, we never figured you could do a man-size job.” The letter “V” also appears in the background which stands for victory. They also look like they are factory workers of some sort.

• ·         The purpose of the ad is to show that women played just as big as a part as men did for WWII.

• ·         The audience is for both, but mostly for women to show that they did a great job and we’re not taking them for granted. The creator was the government and it probably doubted the potential of women at first, but it was proven wrong in the end.

• ·         Ethos was used since our ethical responsibility to help out any way we can with the war. There was also a sense of pride and patriotism

Alvarado Blog Post #2

Education has changed drastically throughout the centuries whether it’d be for better or worse. No education is perfect, but the education system of today’s society is working pretty well. With our digital technology at its peak, we are able to create many opportunities for students and Professors. Professors now have many options in choosing the way they want to teach to a class. They can choose to incorporate digital technology into their lecture/lesson or do it the old fashion way, but you don’t see much of that anymore. Many professors, if not all, are using devices like projectors, computers, and even tablets to teach a class. Even students are allowed to have their own laptops in class to take notes, which greatly decreases the use of paper. Just imagine how much paper would be saved if every student had a laptop and wouldn’t need to use a notebook anymore. Sure, not every student likes to use a laptop, but the thing is that they are just not used to it yet. As time passes by more and more students will accommodate to the use of a laptop.

There’s always going to be people like Nicholas Carr that think these advancements are destroying our way of thinking, reading, writing, etc., but the truth is that it all depends on the individual and how easily they allow digital technology to overtake him/her. Carr says he gets easily distracted now since using a computer, which is why he thinks that the attention span of people is rapidly decreasing. Digital technology is not the cause of this though; it’s always been in our human nature to get easily distracted, therefore the use of computers is not the cause of our “short attention spans.” Our education has been working the way it is, so it doesn’t really need that many changes.  One problem in our education system, though are the SOL’s. I say that because they are pretty pointless and you can easily pass most of them without having learned anything in the classroom. They should either be removed or revamped to make them more accurate, which are already going on. Also if you’re majoring in something like Computer Science you shouldn’t have to take English at all and vice versa. With minor changes like these our educational system would get much better, but I’m sure as time progresses some of these changes will happen.